My latest OB appointment was yesterday, but I was feeling to hot and lame to post about it yesterday. I had been hoping that Boston weather would do what it does about 60% of the time and remain chilly through May. Alas, it was not to be. Instead of snow in April we get temperatures in the 80s. Not the best year for it from my point of view, but presumably almost everyone else is happy.

The appointment proper started off with my OB getting out a sample cup and asking me if I could go again before I left. Apparently they found white blood cells in the urine sample I'd given then 15 minutes earlier and wanted to rule out a UTI. I could have produced another sample right then and there if they'd wanted. I'm all about going these days. I doubt it's an actual infection, I think repeatedly getting kicked in the bladder every day for the past few months might have something to do with it. Still, better safe than sorry.

Speaking of kicks, it's pretty obvious that the fetus is still breech. I brought this up and mentioned for the umpteenth time the fact that I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE A C-SECTION. My OB was pretty relaxed about it, but not without a plan, thank goodness. So the plan is we give the fetus until 37 weeks to get properly oriented and if the fetus is still breech she will do a version. I'm so glad she said he V word. Did I mentionnot wanting to have a c-section? In the meantime I'll try long walks and turning myself upside down and all sorts of weird stuff, but it's good to know that my OB is willing to try to manually turn the baby instead of just resorting to cutting me open. Yay!

Everything else is just peachy. The only other news was the actual stats from the ultrasound I got last week. We already knew I was happily pervia-free (unlike poor enugent, who has been stuck in the hospital for a month now, with another month to go). The full results included an actual size estimate, based on various measurements. The error bars on this are pretty big, but as of last Monday they estimate the fetus weighed 3 pounds 4 ounces. That would put the fetus in the 74th percentile for size, and on track to be over 7.5 pounds at birth. I was pretty startled. For my side of the family, that is a HUGE baby. Yes, yes, I know it's not at all large for my circle of friends. For reference purposes I will state that I was 6 lbs 5 oz at birth, Margaret was 7 lbs even, and Margaret's baby Kaden was 6 lbs 5 oz. I was not expecting an above-average baby in terms of size. On the other hand, Warren was over 9 pounds at birth, so maybe it's his doing.

Probably Warren's fault. Thank goodness you have the small-baby gene to balance it. I was 8 lbs, not huge by today's standards but pretty big for the days when women weren't allowed to gain more than 15 pounds during their pregnancy. Tom was over 9 lbs in the same time period. And guess what, we have babies too big for me to push out (not that I get to try this time around - but this one is literally off the chart on most of his measurements).

3 lb 4 oz is almost exactly 1.5 kg right? That looks to me like about 38th percentile at 31 weeks. That would make Nurse Polyanna correct about the expected birth weight, but wrong about the percentile.

Pollyanna was the one who said I was on track for just over 7.5 pounds. That was at a previous visit, but I didn't believe her, figuring that she was inflating the size because higher birth weight is supposed to be better.

The 74th percentile number comes from the actual doctor, who did not project a birth weight, probably wisely. Keep in mind that the measurement in question was taken at 29 weeks 5 days, not 31 weeks.

Yes, I was using the 30-week line when I came up with 50th %ile. But they probably use the 29-week line to calculate it even though you were so close to 30 weeks - as far as I can tell, OBs don't interpolate. (The pediatrician won't either, when you start having well-baby checkups.)

The ultrasound machine automatically spits out the equivalent number of weeks when the measurements are done at my perinatologists. You have to be fast to catch it, though - I first noticed them when looking at the DVD later.

Whatever the actual number, it sounds like you're on track to have a healthy-sized baby. I remember seeing a study a year or two ago that found that having the mothers guess what size the baby would be was actually a better predictor than ultrasound, anyway.